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A scientist accused of stealing secret recipes from a Utah chemistry company has pleaded guilty to a federal charge.

Prabhu Mohapatra entered the plea Friday in U.S. District Court to one count of unlawful access to a protected computer.

The Deseret News reports (http://bit.ly/JOw00o ) prosecutors agreed to drop 25 other charges against him in exchange for the plea.

The 42-year-old Mohapatra, who worked for North Logan-based Frontier Scientific Inc. from 2009 to 2011, admitted to accessing a company chemical resource notebook and emailing the recipe for meso-Tetraphenylporphine, or TPP, to his brother-in-law's company in India.

Frontier officials say no other company in the world produces the chemical in such large quantities.

Mohapata faces up to five years in prison when he's sentenced Aug. 28.